


In Between Gods

by nhasablog



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 11:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhasablog/pseuds/nhasablog
Summary: Nat and Steve watch the stars and pretend as if everything they’re saying doesn’t have a deeper meaning.





	In Between Gods

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I ever post on this account that has no tickling in it, and that's because I started a sideblog on tumblr called nhasasideblog where I will post non-tickle fics, but instead of creating another AO3 for that account I've decided to just post those fics here too since I'm sure not everyone who reads my fics on here care for the tickling. I hope you enjoy!

Natasha rarely looked at people (undercover or not) and thought that they would end up becoming friends. It wasn’t part of her life, and it wasn’t part of her, and while she could decode countless of things about someone at first glance she could never tell in advance what they would eventually mean to her. With the way she’d grown up it should’ve been “nothing”, but she had proof that not everyone always meant nothing to her.

When she met Steve Rogers she had no expectations other than that she was meeting the infamous Captain America, a man quite literally frozen in time. The only thing that had passed her mind was a sort of compassion for him. She knew this couldn’t be easy for him. For anyone really. This just didn’t happen to people.

But Nat knew better and knew what Steve would need, and that was not pity. He needed explanations and patience and people who wouldn’t look at him twice unless he asked for it. Natasha knew she was that person.

And somehow, in between missions and meetings and casual conversations, they became friends. She didn’t like how surprised she was by it, but she accepted it with ease, which was almost terrifying. It was always terrifying when others could use people against you.

She was also in the process of befriending Stark, for some reason, but she didn’t know it yet. It was one of those evenings where he was nowhere in sight so Nat reckoned he was in his workshop and therefore decided to not bother him and instead wandered the many halls of the Avengers Tower. She could spend many weeks hiding away from civilization, partly due to her job, partly because she’d never learned how to interact with people unless it was staged, and she didn’t always have the energy to act. The October rain was merciless, and so she didn’t feel as if she was missing much, but the endless space of the Tower made it easy to avoid people, which was both a shame and a blessing. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed human contact until she bumped into Steve only minutes later.

“Hey you,” she said, her tone only slightly surprised. “Why are you hiding in here?”

One of the best places to go to for privacy in the Tower was a library that was hidden away in the far end of the seventh floor. It was a big room, but the countless of shelves that lined the space made it feel smaller, and Nat would always end up between the two shelves that towered over a couch which in turn was standing in front of one of the gigantic windows that provided this room with natural light when it was available. Steve was currently sitting cross-legged on said couch with a notebook resting on his lap. A reading lamp behind him was the only source of light, and Nat almost wished she had a camera and an artistic eye in order to capture this moment forever.

Steve met her eye and tried to not make a huge deal out of not letting her see whatever he was drawing. She walked up to him as he placed the now closed notebook on the coffee table before him, and by the time she plopped down beside him she could tell his heart was beating slightly faster.

“Nat, hey. I was just-” He paused and took a look around him. “-recharging.”

“We all need to,” she replied, opting to not mention the panic her arrival had caused.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“I guess. I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going, but I think my feet led me here for that exact reason.”

“Our bodies always know what our minds don’t,” Steve said, and Nat would have to agree.

A silence fell over them, and Nat turned toward the window to watch the city lights twinkle around them like stars. The rain had stopped, but it was still slightly cloudy. It was getting dark earlier and earlier now, and she both hated and adored it, depending on her mood. The fact that it’d been raining cats and dogs for the past couple of days didn’t help matters though, but as the sky was clearing up she could tell it wasn’t too late just yet. Definitely too early to pretend to be going to bed, but she didn’t feel like pretending when Steve was around anyway.

“Do you see all the lights beneath us?” she asked him, pointing to the countless windows outside.

Steve turned to look. “I do.”

“It’s like we’re sitting above the stars like gods.”

Steve didn’t reply instantly, and Nat glanced at him with a brief fear that he would think her silly. That he’d seen through her cool facade and thought she was too much of a nerd for him now. But he was just smiling, observing, and Nat’s heart calmed down again.

“It does look like that,” he said eventually. “That’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“I always think that when I’m here at night,” she admitted. “I does help that it’s still cloudy and you can’t see the real stars yet.”

“We could be in between gods. Between the lower layer of dying stars and the upper layer of recently born stars. It would make us more powerful than humans, but less so than gods. We wouldn’t entirely fit in anywhere, but we’d be happy in our in between clouds. Or at least we’d pretend to be.”

Nat could sense an entirely different meaning behind his words, but she only had to look at him to tell he didn’t want this to turn into a deep conversation about how he was doing, so she played along. “We’d be untouchable since humans can’t hurt gods and gods will be too busy doing whatever it is they’re doing to care.”

“We could observe everything without anyone knowing it.”

“We could mess with people if we wanted and no one could stop us.”

“Bad people,” Steve added.

“Bad people,” Nat agreed despite herself. “We’d be the best in between gods there is. And we’d keep the Earth safe from aliens and whatnot.”

“We’ve already done that.”

Nat hadn’t forgotten that. “Imagine what we could do if we were actually gods. We’d be mightier than Thor.”

“Maybe not. He’s a full god, after all. We’re only in between.”

“Let a girl dream.”

Steve laughed and Nat laughed and for a few seconds they were just sitting there and laughing as if the world wasn’t fucked up and aliens and gods and superheroes weren’t wandering over it. Parts of the sky was finally clear of clouds by the time Nat looked up at it again, and as she swallowed back her last laugh she said, “Can gods reach the stars?”

Steve’s laughter died away as well. “I have no idea. Until recently I thought no one could reach the stars. Or well, space at least.” He leaned closer to the window. “I also wasn’t sure there really was a god. Now I know there are more than one.”

“Trust me, you’re not the only one finding this strange. This is all very new to us all.”

“Gods. Men in iron suits flying over cities. A green monster. A man frozen in the ice. Alive. Yeah, it does sound a little… strange.”

“It feels like it all happened so quickly, which I guess it did, but it didn’t all just pile up on us instantly. It happened gradually. The Hulk. Iron Man. You. Thor and Loki. Future history books are going to describe this as one event, but for the people who lived it it’s different. It’s been going on for years.”

“Stark almost died in space,” Steve suddenly said, and Nat knew not to get offended that in theory he dismissed her entire monologue for a whole new subject. They were both just thinking out loud here. “Why are humans so adamant on going to a place that could kill them so easily?”

“Humans are explorers, Steve. They always have been. Space is but yet another place to explore. Our own Earth could kill us easily. One misstep and you’re gone. That’s never stopped us, and neither will the lack of oxygen.”

“Well, at least we’re in between gods. Nothing can hurt us.”

They laughed again, and the mood lifted just a little bit. Nat was only watching the sky now, reaching over Steve to try to turn off the reading lamp, but he did it for her once he realized what she was doing.

The world looked so different in the darkness. Calmer. Emptier. Absolutely terrifying. Nat had always known that the universe was bigger than she could even imagine, but it always became more apparent in the dark.

“Maybe we should go back to the others before they start looking for us,” she eventually said, knowing full well that no one would be looking for them.

Steve hummed. “Five more minutes.”

Five minutes turned to ten, to fifteen, to twenty, and neither of them minded in the slightest.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [tumblr](http://nhasablog.tumblr.com) for tickle fics.
> 
> Here's my [tumblr](http://nhasasideblog.tumblr.com) for non-tickle fics.


End file.
